The Golden Age of Death (A CALLIOPE REAPER-JONES NOVEL)

by Amber Benson

  Bernadette decided she no longer felt like praying. It hadn’t done much for her in life, and it had been less than helpful in death. The only thing she felt compelled to ask for—and it wasn’t praying, it was just asking the universe for help—was the safety of her grandson, Bart. It was all she cared about in the entirety of the world, all she needed or wanted. If these Victorian zombies left Bart alone for eighty or ninety years, then all of her suffering, all of the terribleness of death, would be fine. Well, maybe not fine, but at least bearable.

  She’d been in her green-glass prison for a long time when she suddenly realized someone had removed the top, and she was free to come out. She focused on her soul, pushing it from the confines of the perfume bottle, and then, suddenly, her soul was expanding, stretching back into its original, human form.

  She felt so much better now that she wasn’t in the bottle. She hadn’t realized how constraining it’d been in there. She also hadn’t realized her senses had shut down until her sight and hearing began to return in fits and starts. It reminded her of Bart’s computer when he had to reboot it, all black screen and then a whirling ball of color.

  When her eyes had finally adjusted and she was able to see again, she found herself goggling at her surroundings. She kept wanting to pinch herself, to make sure she was experiencing what she thought she was experiencing: a biblical frieze right out of the Old Testament come to life before her awestruck gaze.

  As a child, she’d imagined the Red Sea as a bloody, foaming beast bowing before Moses’s raised staff, parting so he could bring his people forth to a new life. Who cared if this new life entailed wandering in the desert for forty years? At least the Jews were free of Pharaoh’s rule, right?

  Reality dovetailed nicely with Bernadette’s imagination. The sea before her was red and frothy, bubbling up with eddying pools of foam that reminded her of watery tentacles—yet, the man who stood at the edge of the cauldron-like sea, a thin metal staff in his raised hand, was not like any kind of Moses she’d ever dreamed of. He was tall and statuesque like a racehorse. He even had a horse’s forelock of black hair draping his brow. His skin was the color of a ripe peach, firm and tan, and his pitch-black hair descended in luxuriant waves to his shoulder blades.

  He was wearing a long, pale blue caftan that split at the neck—revealing a tuft of thick black chest hair—but covered the rest of him completely except where its sleeves fell back from the wrists of his upraised arms. He was doing something to the water, controlling it with his mind so it leapt and foamed, parting briefly every now and then to reveal a sandy, rock-strewn bottom. Then the water would fall against itself, covering the sea floor again.

  The man half turned in Bernadette’s direction and she saw dark eyes, thick eyebrows, and an equine shape to his face. He smiled at her, beckoning her forward with his free hand, and the warmth of his expression made Bernadette’s heart flip-flop.

  “Come!” he called, the smile never leaving his face.

  She looked around, making sure he was really calling to her—there was no one else there, just an empty expanse of desert—then she took a tentative step toward him.

  “Don’t be afraid, Bernadette.”

  His voice was loud, but got softer as she crossed the divide between them. Like a promise, he held his hand out for her to take, his pianist’s fingers trembling slightly. His features became doughier as she got closer to him, her relative closeness and the harshness of the desert sun finally revealing all of his flaws.

  He wasn’t nearly as handsome as she’d first thought. His eyes were too close, his chin too long, and his thick hair had chunky white dandruff peppered through it.

  The only thing that held true was his smile. It never once lost its hold on her.

  “Are you Moses?” Bernadette asked as soon as she’d reached him and his hand was grasping hers.

  The man laughed, showing pristine white teeth.

  “I’m just the Gatekeeper to the East…I have stood here for centuries, tasked with guiding souls to their proper destination.”

  “Oh,” Bernadette said as the man’s hand began to get sweaty, making it hard to hold.

  She tore her eyes away from his puffy face, choosing to stare out at the roiling sea, instead. She didn’t think it was a very heavenly sea, all red and swollen and seething—and it made her wonder where, exactly, she was…because she was starting to feel pretty certain this wasn’t Heaven.

  “Are you ready to walk the sea?” the man asked, continuing to smile down at her.

  His smile hadn’t seemed at all sinister at first, but now Bernadette couldn’t look at it without getting creeped out. She hated to admit it, but the man was starting to make her feel very uncomfortable.

  “I don’t think I want to,” she said. “No, I’m sure I don’t.”

  She tried to remove her hand from the man’s, but he held on tightly, not letting her go.

  “Take me back home,” she said.

  The man gave her a sad smile, one more real than the one he’d first worn.

  “There is no going back, Bernadette,” he said, a mournful undertone to his words. “One can only go forward when one is on the path leading into the heart of Hell.”

  * * *

  “you can’t go back,” Morrigan said, her red eyebrow arched in a look of pure disdain.

  She was sitting on the edge of the bed beside Caoimhe, her long white fingers gently pulling at the tangled strands of her lover’s hair.

  “I have to, love,” Caoimhe said.

  She knew what Morrigan had done—because Morrigan had told her in detail—and she was very sorry her partner had wasted her energy. She wasn’t going to stay in their lovely, sun-drenched Balmoral flat doing nothing as her daughter was erased from the world.

  Of course she’d expected such resistance from her jealous wife, which was exactly why she’d told her nothing of Daniel’s call. She’d just gotten her things in order, putting together her few meager possessions (most of what they owned jointly really belonged to Morrigan), so she would be ready to go to Sea Verge. She knew she’d arrived in time to stop that horrible Siren, Starr, from absconding into the sea, but then something had happened in the car and she’d blacked out, waking up here, in her bed with Morrigan at her side.

  “I forbid it,” Morrigan said, standing up and walking to the mantelpiece.

  Stress had made the blue veins underneath her pale skin stand out and her prized red hair seemed limp. She was still a beautiful woman, but she looked wrecked.

  “You can’t forbid me to do anything, love,” Caoimhe said, sitting up in bed, her head swimming. She remembered an explosion, a bright flare of orange, and knew this must be what was responsible for the vertigo she was experiencing. “I’m my own person.”

  She’d always been her own person. It was something she prided herself on. No one could ever say she was beholden to anyone or anything. Even when Morrigan had tried to force immortality upon her, Caoimhe had resisted—not because she didn’t want to spend forever with her wife, but because she hadn’t earned it, herself.

  “I detest that about you, you bitch,” Morrigan said, her back to Caoimhe. “So hatefully independent.”

  “Yes, it’s the truth,” Caoimhe said, slipping her feet into her slippers and standing up.

  She felt woozy for a moment, but the feeling passed, and she was able to walk across the room without keeling over.

  “It’s also what you love about me,” Caoimhe finished, wrapping her arms around Morrigan’s slender waist.

  She nuzzled against the soft fluff of hair at the nape of Morrigan’s neck then pressed her lips to the warm flesh.

  “You really are hateful,” Morrigan said, trying to ignore Caoimhe’s lips on her skin.

  “I am?”

  Morrigan nodded.

  “Terribly hateful? Or just plain old hateful?” Caoimhe asked—and she thought she’d won Morrigan over.

  “No,” Morrigan said, pushing Caioimhe away. “You can’t seduce me
into doing what you like.”

  The jig was up. She wasn’t going to get Morrigan’s approval, no matter what she did. She’d hoped this wasn’t going to be the case, but in her heart she’d suspected as much.

  Her wife did not care for her daughter. Not because she disliked Calliope, personally, but because she hated anyone who took Caoimhe’s attention away from her. It was a flaw in Morrigan’s character, but through the years, Caoimhe had come to accept it was a part of who her lover was. She didn’t try and change Morrigan—that would’ve been like squeezing blood from a rock—but she didn’t reward the bad behavior, either.

  “She’s your boss and you’re willing to just throw her under the bus,” Caoimhe said, her tone harsh.

  Selfishness was another of Morrigan’s characteristics she didn’t love.

  “I’m just a lowly Vice-President,” Morrigan whined.

  “So?” Caoimhe said.

  “So nothing,” Morrigan replied. “If she can’t take care of herself, then she doesn’t deserve to be Death—”

  Caoimhe rested her hands on her hips, the silky dressing gown she wore making her feel strangely vulnerable.

  “That’s enough! I don’t want to hear another word against Callie.”

  Morrigan saw Caoimhe meant business and decided not to push the issue.

  “Now, I’m going to meet Jarvis and the others at the agreed upon place and there’s really nothing you can do to stop me,” Caoimhe said, eyes narrowed.

  “But isn’t there?” Morrigan said, taking a step toward Caoimhe.

  Caoimhe sensed Morrigan had something up her sleeve, and she knew it was not going to be pleasant. She tried to back away, to put as much distance between them as she could, but for every step back she took, Morrigan took one closer.

  “What’re you doing?” Caoimhe asked, her thighs pressed up against the top of the down-filled comforter.

  “I’m saving your skin. That’s what I’m doing.”

  Caoimhe sat down on the bed then yanked her legs up so she could roll across the bed.

  “You can go wherever you like,” Morrigan said, shrugging her bony shoulders. “But it’s going to catch you.”

  Caoimhe felt funny. The vertigo had returned and now it was making her head spin. She was able to get to the other side of the bed, but her dismount left something to be desired. She landed on the floor, hitting her head against the nightstand.

  “What did you do to me?” she slurred, glaring up at Morrigan, who’d circumvented the bed to be nearer to her.

  “I only did what’s best for you,” Morrigan said, squatting down beside her, looking sad.

  “The best…?” Caoimhe moaned, understanding blossoming inside her skull—but it was too late to do anything about it.

  The room dipped and swirled as she tried to hold on to consciousness…and then her vision blurred and everything faded to gray.

  And then black.

  seventeen

  CALLIOPE

  I felt like Alice, staring into the looking glass just before she stepped through it. I knew she was curious about what was waiting for her on the other side of the mirror, but the difference between us was that I knew the answer.

  Death and the End of Death.

  I pressed my hand against the wall, the cold glass pulling the heat from my flesh. I’d dropped the hammer on the ground in frustration after it’d cracked the glass, but refused to do anything more. Now I bent down and picked it up again, sliding it back into my leather tool belt.

  The Alternate Frank, the one who came from a different universe, grinned at me as he stabbed his fingers into the smoothness of Marcel’s throat, choking the life out of the Ender of Death. Marcel’s eyes had begun to pop out of his head, the skin of his face and neck a fetid shade of purple. But the worst was his tongue. It was as if a giant pink slug had crawled out of his mouth and was flailing against his lips.

  “Call a wormhole!” I screamed, my voice muted by the glass.

  I knew Marcel couldn’t hear or see me in the condition he was in, but I wasn’t yelling at him. Instead, my eyes were trained on Runt, who was huddled in a ball, her front paw bent at a crooked angle. She was staring intently at my lips, her pink eyes flicking back and forth as she tried to decipher what I was saying.

  “Wormhole!!” I cried, pounding on the glass with my hand. “Call a wormhole!!”

  Understanding flared in her eyes, her tail thumping against the concrete floor.

  Thank God, I thought. She understood me.

  Jarvis had warned us no one could wormhole in or out of the inside of Uriah Drood’s compound—so why had I asked Runt to do the impossible? Well, what very few people realized was hellhounds possessed their own special blend of magic. Which meant Runt wasn’t being monitored by anyone.

  The first time she’d dragged me into a wormhole of her calling, I was an emotional wreck afterward. Stepping into Runt’s magic was like getting high on an eight-year-old girl’s pretend tea party: Your soul felt all full of unicorns, kittens, cotton candy, and pretty pink and purple twinkle lights. You had so much happiness inside of you, you thought you were gonna burst. Then, when you finally stepped out of the wormhole, all of that happiness just…evaporated—and the loss of all those beautiful things hit you with a quiet intensity reminiscent of a sucker punch to the gut.

  Coming down off a hellhound magic high was seriously depressing.

  Anyway, the reason I’d asked Runt to call up a wormhole was twofold: I figured Uriah Drood probably hadn’t calibrated his spell to affect hellhound magic and Runt was just close enough to Marcel she might possibly be able to save his life.

  “Do it, Runt!” I screamed.

  The Alternate Frank—as I now called him—seemed amused by my antics on the other side of the glass, but was much more interested in throttling Marcel, so he didn’t really pay attention to what exactly I was saying. The one great thing about dealing with a narcissist is they’re so caught up in the greatness of their own actions they discount what everyone else is doing.

  Alternate Frank had no idea he was about to have his ass handed to him on a plate. He was too busy luxuriating in the slow murder of the Ender of Death to be prepared for the onslaught of goodness Runt unleashed on him.

  I watched from the other side of the glass as Runt sat up, struggling a little to stand on her busted leg. She looked like she was all about the plan we’d come up with, and kept thwacking her tail excitedly against the leg of the side table she was standing next to. I closed my eyes and sent all the good vibes I had inside me toward the hellhound. If she could pull this off, the three of us might actually get out of Purgatory with our lives intact.

  I opened my eyes, my confidence in Runt unimpeachable, and waited for her to get the ball rolling. She lowered her head in concentration and I felt the ground begin to tremble. The trembling grew in intensity until the sandy dirt was roiling underneath my feet. I had to lean against the glass wall in order to keep my balance, leaving my sweaty palm prints all over it.

  Inside, Alternate Frank lost his balance, his grip on Marcel’s throat slackening. He released Marcel, who fell forward, slamming his forehead into the wall. The taut skin opened in a spray of blood that arced across the glass, leaving a trail of bright red on the inside of the glass wall as he slid down its surface. He hit the floor, folding like a discarded marionette, his arms and legs akimbo.

  Behind Marcel’s body, Alternate Frank had planted his feet on the concrete floor, trying to keep his balance.

  “Good job, girl!” I yelled at Runt, giving her the thumbs-up through the window.

  She wagged her tail at me as she hobbled over to Marcel’s limp body, her coat swathed in a dusky rose halo that shimmered even in the blue Purgatorial light. When she got to Marcel, she looked up at me, uncertainly. I didn’t need a diagram to know what she was thinking: She couldn’t transport me away with her and Marcel because I was on the wrong side of the glass—and she didn’t want to leave me here.

  “G
o!” I yelled, nodding my head. “Get Marcel away from here!”

  Alternate Frank had pinpointed the source of the trouble and was now zeroing in on my puppy.

  “Get out of here!” I screamed at Runt. “He’s coming!!”

  I pointed to Alternate Frank, who was attempting to walk across the floor as the ground rocked and rolled beneath his feet. Runt seemed to realize the time for indecision was over. Looking back at me with a baleful expression in her eyes, she gave a casual flick of her head and called up a wormhole—actually it was more like a golden, shimmering door—then used her teeth to drag Marcel’s limp body through the doorway.

  Alternate Frank leapt into the air, trying to follow Runt and Marcel on to their next destination, but he wasn’t fast enough. The doorway disappeared with a pop and he belly flopped onto the floor, his chin slamming into the concrete.

  I leaned against the glass, exhausted, my body shaking like I’d just run a marathon. I had to force myself to stop thinking about how close Alternate Frank had come to getting his hands on Runt. If she hadn’t wormholed them out of there when she did—

  No, I did not want to think about what would’ve happened.

  The earthquake-like shaking had stopped immediately after Runt had disappeared inside the wormhole/doorway, so I could happily remove my hands from the glass wall I’d been using to steady myself.

  Runt and Marcel were safe(ish) for now, and if I wanted to keep them that way, then I had to do something about Alternate Frank. This meant I had to either get past the stupid house spell or, if I was really smart, find a way to entice Alternate Frank outside.

  I decided to try to entice him outside first and leave the spell breaking for another day.